How can I detect changes in location hash?

Solution 1:

The only way to really do this (and is how the 'reallysimplehistory' does this), is by setting an interval that keeps checking the current hash, and comparing it against what it was before, we do this and let subscribers subscribe to a changed event that we fire if the hash changes.. its not perfect but browsers really don't support this event natively.

Update to keep this answer fresh:

If you are using jQuery (which today should be somewhat foundational for most) then a nice solution is to use the abstraction that jQuery gives you by using its events system to listen to hashchange events on the window object.

$(window).on('hashchange', function() {
  //.. work ..
});

The nice thing here is you can write code that doesn't need to even worry about hashchange support, however you DO need to do some magic, in form of a somewhat lesser known jQuery feature jQuery special events.

With this feature you essentially get to run some setup code for any event, the first time somebody attempts to use the event in any way (such as binding to the event).

In this setup code you can check for native browser support and if the browser doesn't natively implement this, you can setup a single timer to poll for changes, and trigger the jQuery event.

This completely unbinds your code from needing to understand this support problem, the implementation of a special event of this kind is trivial (to get a simple 98% working version), but why do that when somebody else has already.

Solution 2:

HTML5 specifies a hashchange event. This event is now supported by all modern browsers. Support was added in the following browser versions:

• Internet Explorer 8
• Firefox 3.6
• Chrome 5
• Safari 5
• Opera 10.6

Solution 3:

Note that in case of Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 9 the if statment will give true (for "onhashchange" in windows), but the window.onhashchange will never fire, so it's better to store hash and check it after every 100 millisecond whether it's changed or not for all versions of Internet Explorer.

    if (("onhashchange" in window) && !($.browser.msie)) {
         window.onhashchange = function () {
              alert(window.location.hash);
         }
         // Or $(window).bind( 'hashchange',function(e) {
         //       alert(window.location.hash);
         //   });
    }
    else {
        var prevHash = window.location.hash;
        window.setInterval(function () {
           if (window.location.hash != prevHash) {
              prevHash = window.location.hash;
              alert(window.location.hash);
           }
        }, 100);
    }

EDIT - Since jQuery 1.9, $.browser.msie is not supported. Source: http://api.jquery.com/jquery.browser/